Mesut Özil's form has picked up a bit at Arsenal this season, although it is not yet at the level new manager Unai Emery would desire. The club certainly have a right to expect him to perform at an extremely high level, having handed him a £350,000 per-week contract at the turn of the year.
However, Özil had much bigger offers on the table. The Evening Standard are reporting that the player had contract offers worth up £1m-per-week from clubs in Asia.
Özil had entered the final six months of his contract at the Emirates, meaning he would have been free to leave the club on a free transfer at the end of last season. He turned down the move however, instead choosing to sign an extension to remain in London.
The player's agent, Dr Erkut Sogut, told the Evening Standard that the offers from Asia were indeed there, but said that money is not always the deciding factor.
We had some really big offers from Asia - there were some crazy offers. But, for Mesut, money was by no means the biggest factor.
Money is definitely one important thing to consider, but people must remember that footballing ability is just one aspect of a contract negotiation...
We were free to sign with other clubs and, in the end, Mesut loves the club. I put everything to him and he just said, ‘This is my home, I want to be here’.
It must be said that Özil's current pay package is hardly a pittance, receiving a raise of over £200,000 per-week on his previous £145,000 salary. Whether his often lacklustre performances on the pitch can warrant such a wage can be debated, Sogut claims that there are other factors in determining a player's value to a club.
The commercial impact of a footballer is crucial nowadays.
Mesut has the biggest social media following of any player in the Premier League and I just read that his shirt numbers (sales) were the largest at the club. At the end of the day, this is all information that has to be taken into consideration.
The question you need to ask yourself is: does form really matter as long as you are raking in those likes on Instagram?
